By Telecom
Lead Team: Uninor, a telecom firm that lost all of its 22 licences following
the Supreme Court verdict, proposed that there should be a fair auction where
only those players who got licenses in 2008 should be included.
2008. Last time it was very clear that the policy of the government was to
increase competition so the (then) incumbents were not invited. This time it
needs to be in the same spirit, the incumbents should not be
invited,” said Sigve Brekke, managing director of Uninor.
rumors about closure of its services.
It is way
too early to say on bidding for the spectrum. First we need to see what their
bidding criteria would be, what their reserve price would be. Intention is
definitely to continue. In principle, we are definitely looking to bid in the
auction,” Brekke added.
The
managing director of Uninor added that the company would submit its views on
the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) pre-consultation paper on 2G
auction by the end of this week.
Uninor to secure telecom
investments in India
Brekke
said the company would fight for securing its investments and customers. The
Norwegian prime minister has also written to his Indian counterpart. The
information technology minister of Norway, who is in India for a week, will be
meeting the government as well.
The
Norwegian government owns nearly 54 percent stake in Telenor, which holds a 67
percent stake in Unitech Wireless. Uninor currently has close to 40 million
customers and 17,500 staff in India.
Telenor,
however, also indicated it may quit its Indian business if it fails to secure
licenses to offer telecommunication services.
Telenor
entered Indian market by acquiring a 67.3 percent stake in Unitech Wireless
from real-estate developer Unitech in 2008 for around Rs 61 billion ($1.25
billion at current exchange rate), and has so far provided more than Rs 80
billion in corporate guarantees to the unit, making it the country’s
second-largest foreign investor in the telecom sector, after Vodafone Group.
